


The First Part of Me

by lastkid



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 10:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14932158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastkid/pseuds/lastkid
Summary: Wentworth mornings don't just knock Franky for a loop.  (A potential post S6 exploration.)





	The First Part of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Once" by Maren Morris (an S5 Fridget song if I ever heard one). One line/concept also borrowed from "Whatever I am" by Brighten.

Franky wakes up a few minutes before dawn.

 

It doesn't happen often, but some mornings her old prison schedule comes back to haunt her, and she finds herself wide awake in the dark, waiting for the sound of the gate sliding back, the hard footsteps to her door, the key turning, a screw whispering, "Get up, Doyle," so she could go to the kitchen to start breakfast.

 

She can almost feel the shitty worn steam-pressed cotton sheets under her, and when she slides out of bed, there is a moment when she expects to feel cold concrete under her bare feet instead of the smooth hardwood of Bridget's bedroom.

 

_You are home,_ she reminds herself in that first jarring moment. _This is real._

 

Franky rounds the bed and picks her clothes up from the floor, careful not to disturb Bridget, who is curled up facing Franky's side, blanket loosely covering her bare back, short blonde hair spread haphazardly on the pillow. She cracks a pleased smile at the sight; even in the low light leaking in from the hall, she can see how tousled Bridget's hair is, a few stray red marks on her fair skin, evidence of a very sweet, very late night tangled up in each other.

 

She dresses in the bathroom. As she straightens out her own very disheveled hair in the mirror, Franky remembers all of a sudden how the night before started:  Bridget's hands sliding around her waist from behind as she brushed her teeth.  Bridget's chin on her shoulder, their eyes meeting in the mirror, the quickening thud of her heartbeat at the look of sheer adoration in Bridget's blue eyes. The kiss to her spine when she leaned forward to rinse her mouth.  A silent conversation in the mirror, all quirked eyebrows and head tilts, as Bridget's hands worked at the drawstring on her pajama bottoms, a welcome reminder it's still okay to talk without speaking.  Bridget's smile turning seductive.  Her own, shifting from faux-surprise to match her lover's.  Bridget wrapping her arms around her neck once she'd turned around and settled her hands on Bridget's hips, slowly swaying in place as they kissed.  Bridget reaching up to whisper one instruction into Franky's ear.  "Don't rush."

 

(What Bridget wants, Bridget gets.)

 

The memory alone is nearly enough to send Franky back to bed.

 

But Bridget has had a long week, and deserves to sleep uninterrupted by Franky on a Wentworth morning, when she is knocked off-kilter by the cloak of memories, and the boundaries between her past and present are softer, more easily breached. So instead of returning to bed and the comforting contact of Bridget's body against hers, Franky wanders down the hall to make coffee.

 

(They have ground rules this time around. Rules they're actually sticking to.  Like whoever gets up first makes the coffee.  Like no bottling up and no bottles.  And no Franky during the week.  Friday night to Sunday night she can stay at the house, but that's it until her parole period is up.)

 

She punches the espresso button on Bridget's stupid-fancy coffee maker, a beast of a machine that appeared in the kitchen in place of Bridget's wine rack at some point while Franky was away. She's not sure Bridget bothers with it much when she's not here—Bridget loves her tea—but there are always fresh beans to grind when she comes over Friday nights.

 

While the coffee drips into her cup, Franky leans against the counter and checks out the decorations on the wall. The family photos she might someday be a part of.  The images from Bridget's travels.  The decorative crosses and paintings of saints.  She'd asked Bridget about all the religious stuff when she'd first moved in, and Bridget had smiled. 

 

"The power of redemption speaks to me."

 

(Thank fuck for that.)

 

Franky still isn't so good at I love you. She shouted it across the chasm forming between them as Bridget walked away, and across a darkened street as she ran away, whispered it over and over again during their reunion while she was on the run and before she walked back through the gates of Wentworth, promised herself she'd try to be as free with it as Bridget was, once she had the chance.  But even after everything, even though it's easier, even though she feels it with more intensity every day, the words just don't come out as effortlessly as they do for Bridget, and so she does her best to fill in the gaps of her silence with actions.

 

Even if it's something as small as changing the settings on the coffee machine back to Bridget's preferred setting, leaving the pot filling slowly so it's brewed whenever Bridget's ready for it, and making sure Bridget's favorite mug is clean and out on the counter.

 

Franky takes her coffee and goes outside to watch the sun come up. She tucks herself against the arm of the old oak bench a previous owner left behind, and takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.  Everything is soft in the sunrise light, a little hazy and unfocused.  The clouds are pinking as the sun works its way skyward, and the first of the songbirds begin to announce their arrival.  There is a touch of heat where the winter chill has been, that first tingly warmth of spring.  Bridget's neighbor had been working in his garden yesterday, and the scent of fresh mown dewy grass hangs in the air.  Four months on from her release from prison, it's hard to believe this peace exists in her life, again.

 

(Still.)

 

Beautiful.

 

From the moment she ran into Mike Penissi that afternoon in the café, Franky's life had been dominated by urgency: to get him to leave her and her new life alone, to get out of Wentworth one way or another, to prove her innocence once she'd escaped, to get through the few months' incarceration she'd earned for the escape and her parole violations, to relinquish the freedom of being alone and get her girl back, to fix the mess she'd made of their relationship before Bridget got tired of covering and risking for her or realized she wasn't worth it or found someone else.

 

(The idea of another woman falling in love with Bridget – the fear of someone taking her place in Bridget's home and in her bed and in her heart – had driven Franky through the worst of the past eighteen months. She wasn't going to sit across from Bridget in the visitor's center, having some bullshit superficial conversation about Bridget's new haircut, and realize Bridget didn't love her anymore.  She wasn't going to have that phone call or visit or letter where Bridget tried to let her down gently.  She wasn't going to run into Bridget and her new love at the shops, watch them hold hands and kiss, see some other woman living Franky's life.)

 

Now, sitting outside what once was and will be her home again, with the woman she loves sleeping inside, Franky can't feel anything but settled. She's proven her innocence, won her freedom, got her job back, returned her heart to its rightful owner.  Her life isn't perfect, but it's getting there.

 

She drinks her coffee slowly, over fifteen minutes or so, and when she's done, she puts her mug under the bench, out of the way of wayward feet. In another lifetime, she'd roll a cigarette now, smoke it just to keep herself occupied.  The need to keep her hands busy is gone now, the need to keep her mind focused on anything other than her reality quashed.  Franky loses herself in the simple timeless pleasure of watching the clouds move across the sky.  Only the neighbor's usual paper delivery skidding across their drive lets her know the morning is moving on.

 

There is a soft _snick_ behind her as the door latch lets go, and Franky can't help her smile when she looks back over her shoulder to watch Bridget, holding a steaming mug and one of the light throws she keeps on the back of the couch wrapped around her shoulders, close the door.  "Morning," she says.

 

"Hi, baby." Maybe someday, the soft, sweet way Bridget looks at her first thing in the morning won't take her breath away, won't run her through.

 

_I love her._

_I need her._

_I hurt her._

Franky's smile falters at that, but as Bridget makes her way across the yard, she forces the thought away.

_She is still here and she still loves me._

(And if there's one thing Franky loves best, it's Bridget's ability to see the worse of her and the best of her all at once and love her anyway.)

"I thought I'd find you out here," Bridget says behind her, quietly, aware of their neighbors and the early hour. "What a beautiful sky."

 

Franky tilts her head back for a coffee-tinted kiss, tugs at the blanket. "Cold, Gidge?"

 

"No," Bridget says as she folds herself against the opposite arm, stretching her legs out over Franky’s lap, "it's just not quite warm enough for no sleeves yet." She glances pointedly at Franky's flannel-covered arms.

 

"Did I wake you?" Automatically, Franky’s arm comes down to drape over Bridget’s legs, cupping her fingers around a bare foot.  Not too cold, then.

 

Bridget shakes her head, laughs.  "After last night?  You could have set the kitchen on fire, I might not have noticed."

 

Franky hums in agreement. It had been a thoroughly satisfying, pleasantly exhausting night, ending only when Bridget reached down and stopped the lazy motion of Franky's fingers on her thigh and called it a night.

 

"What got you out of bed so early?"

 

"Oh, you know," Franky shrugs, trying to play it off.   "Memories." A beat, where they look at each other, acknowledge what Franky isn't saying, and decide to leave it at that.  "You?"

 

Bridget chuckles. "I was having a dream, about you—"

 

"Please tell me it was dirty."

 

"It was, but not in the way you're thinking." Bridget brings her cup to her lips, takes a sip, holding Franky's gaze a moment longer than necessary, a content and slightly smug smile playing on her face.

 

_Tease._

 

Franky lifts an eyebrow, taps Bridget's foot with her hand. "Well, go on then."

 

To Bridget’s credit, she makes no outward notice of Franky’s impatience. "We were living at my grandparent's farm outside of Shepparton.  Hiding, I think, though it never came up; it was just the feeling I had about why we were there.  I'd been into town, and when I came home, you were off repairing a fence around a pasture.  I brought you water.  You were covered in dirt and sweat and swearing a blue streak about rabbits."

 

Franky chortles. "Rabbits?"

 

Bridget's eyes twinkle. "Mmm.  You were going on and on about preventing them from ruining your growing season, you could have learned a thing or two about getting into place you weren't meant to be in, and how you'd never understood the screws more."

 

_"You don't trust me."_

_"No."_

 

"Must have been a dream if you got me sympathizing with the screws, Gidge." Franky makes a face, pretends to shudder.  "No fucking way."

 

"—Anyway, I woke up, found myself alone, smelled the coffee brewing and thought, why stay in bed by myself when this very charming rabbit hunter was somewhere in my house for me to find?"

 

"…a valid question," Franky interjects.

 

"I'd happily stay there all day if you're with me. I miss waking up with you during the week."  Affection blooms in Bridget's eyes, starting up that particular bittersweet ache in Franky's chest.  Bridget doesn't expect her to be this open, she knows, and still she wishes she could.

 

Franky squeezes Bridget's foot. "Soon, Gidge."

 

As soon as her parole is over, and as soon as they're free of the bounds of Bridget's professional ethics. Not too much longer, and not soon enough.

 

"Anything special you want to do this weekend?"

 

"Nah. You have work to finish up?"  After she'd left Wentworth, Bridget hadn't gone back into full-time prison work, but she is in regular demand from Legal Aid and other law firms doing consulting and other expert witness work.  Not the kind of work that can always fit well into a typical week, but it keeps her in touch with work that means something.  Franky watches her some nights, notes and books spread over the table, typing furiously at some report to keep someone like Franky out of prison, and rather than being annoyed that Bridget's being pulled away from time with her, she's just so fucking proud.

 

Bridget shakes her head. "No.  I had a couple of cancellations yesterday and got everything done.  I'm all yours."

 

"Just the way I like it."

 

"Oh, by the way, I found this in the couch cushions when I grabbed the blanket." Bridget tilts her head and takes a sip of her coffee.  "Do we need to talk about it?"

 

Her belongings came from Wentworth in a box, everything she'd left in her cell packed neatly by her family, and the jewelry she had on when she'd been arrested for the murder tucked in the same manila envelope she'd watched Will Jackson fill.

 

Franky hadn't wanted to open it at the bedsit all by herself, but then couldn't bring herself to open it while Bridget was home. Left alone one morning when Bridget had run to the shops, she'd finally gotten her nerve up.  She ripped through her signature and the date acknowledging and agreeing to the contents, shaking out the bracelets and her thumb rings onto the table.  Her Celtic knot ring, the one she'd slipped onto her left hand shortly after she'd moved out of Bridget's last year, clattered out last, catching an edge and spinning to a stop.

 

Franky's stomach rolled along with it.

 

She'd put the ring on to remind herself that all the things she'd wanted and all the things she had were real. A tangible, visible reminder that the life she was living post-Wentworth _was_ hers after all.  Franky had been so proud to wear it, to declare herself and her love to the world, to make that unspoken commitment to Bridget.  Proud of the strength of their relationship.  Proud that she was becoming the person she'd always wanted to be and the person Bridget deserved.  Proud of herself for making Bridget happy, and being happy, and succeeding at something she never thought she was capable of.

 

Well.  She'd gone and proved herself wrong, hadn't she. 

 

_"You don't trust me."_

_"No."  Bridget regards Franky with cool eyes.  "And you don't trust me either."_

 

There was no room for revisionist history, no past version of their life where Franky wasn't a constant liar, where she didn't put hands on Bridget, where she didn't make out with Allie to cover their plans or try to fuck her to stop herself from feeling so much, where she didn't take advantage again and again of Bridget's love for her. Bridget had forgiven her and she'd almost forgiven herself, but there on the table, glinting in the sunshine, was evidence of just how far she'd gone wrong.

 

The wave of sadness and guilt and anger broke over her and she lashed out, knocking the pile of jewelry from the table with one violent sweep of her arm.

 

Later, she'd picked up the bracelets and most of the rings, but she hadn't found that one. Which was fine.  Hadn't needed the reminder.  Besides, she couldn't put that ring on again while there was the slightest possibility they weren't going to work out and she'd have to take it off.

 

Seeing it in Bridget's palm now, Franky isn't quite sure what to feel.

 

She cannot change that this relationship was once easy and freeing and light but isn't all the way back to those things yet, that they can't be free to be together the way they once were, that they have to work at it if they want it to last, that they broke each other's hearts and now are finding a way to scar over the sutures of their reconciliation.

 

But all of these things pale to the final thing they cannot change: Franky loves Bridget, Bridget loves Franky, and neither time nor distance nor other people can touch that.

 

 

Bridget holds her hand out for another moment, letting Franky make up her mind about not taking the ring from her, then curls her fingers around it and starts to tuck it away. She watches the emotions play out over Franky's face, subtle and quick, guilt in the shape of her lips and chagrin and self-deprecation in her brow, and thinks, _come on, baby, don't hide from me._

 

She gets it, she does. She knows exactly what the ring meant to Franky, and what it meant to her to see it on Franky's finger, to feel it when she reached up to hold Franky's hand over her shoulder.  For a woman who only in the last year has become comfortable verbalizing the depth of her emotions, and for a woman who understands exactly how she presents herself to the rest of the world, the ring had spoken volumes about how she felt about Bridget.

 

But she knows how Franky is. She's known it all along.  So Bridget isn't surprised, given what they'd gone through, what Franky had done to her, what she – no matter how justified – had done to Franky, that the ring has been conspicuously absent from Franky's left hand.  She wasn't surprised to find it hiding in the cushions of the couch they don't use.  She isn't surprised that Franky's hesitating to take it from her, or to speak about it, especially today, when neither of them want to talk about what drove Franky out of bed so early, or why Bridget had a dream about being on the run together.

 

Wentworth mornings don't just knock Franky for a loop. Not just Franky's memories that come to play.  Not just Franky who can't move through the day without the disquieting sense that everything could fall apart in an instant.

 

(Again.)

 

After all, Wentworth will always be the place where she found the love of her life, where she first fell in love with Franky, where Franky first fell in love with her. And it's also where her love pulled at her sense of self, where her love went too far, where for the first time she discovered she was capable of wrapping too much of herself into another person, where she broke her promise to Franky for both of their sakes.  It will always be the place Franky hurt her worst.

 

Bridget is accustomed to the dirty work of relationships, the deep dive into the pit they'd made and working together to build a way out or make the pit livable. She's dealt with it hundreds of times in her career, especially inside, when half of the partnership wouldn't be there to do the work.  She's dealt with it personally, as long as the relationship mattered enough to her to try.

 

Franky mattered enough.

 

And so, when Franky had come to her as a fugitive, desperate and needing her, she'd held her close and swore they were in it together, ignored everything that had gone wrong until they had time to deal with it.

 

When that time came for her and Franky, she put on her best face and opened herself to trying. They had to do this on their own.  No warm welcoming office, no matching chairs or couch, no bookshelf full of psychological texts, no calm empathetic guide taking notes as she and Franky hashed it out in fifty-minute hours.  Even if she could have trusted a colleague with their secret, Franky would never have gone for it.  Bridget was the one to set the guidelines, to keep an eye on Franky while they walked through the wreckage, to make sure Franky stayed comfortable but didn't run from the mess she made.  When it comes to getting behind her walls, Franky is a delicate balancing act; even if they could have, Bridget doesn't think she would have trusted anyone else with Franky's heart.

 

She knew going in that it would be tough. All the time Franky had been inside, they had left too much unspoken, and when they did speak, they hadn't listened to each other at all.  But there was so much left between them—Franky had come back; her wish to say no would never come true—and they owed it to each other to fight for what they'd had, now that they'd been given the chance to.  Even though Franky was awash in blame, even though she was doing her best to stay calm when she was still so bloody angry, even though, well…

 

"You don't trust me."

 

"No." Franky had nodded to herself, as she took in Bridget's cool tone and cool eyes, and retreated further into her self-condemnation.  "And you don't trust me either."

 

Franky had been so surprised then, as if she had forgotten that Bridget felt that way, that she _could_ feel that way, and it cut through the shell of her guilt.  "Of course I fucking trust you!"

 

She offered up the escape to the altar of their relationship; proof of her commitment and that all the hell had been worth it, had been for something. That all the times that maybe, okay, _yes,_ she'd taken advantage of Bridget was proof of her trust.  Bridget wanted to help and that was how she helped.  And yes, she hadn't said anything, hadn't let Bridget be involved until after the fact, but fuck, she didn't want Bridget to end up inside with her or hurt or dead.  And if she wanted an apology for wanting to keep her safe, then fuck it, she was sorry for how she went about it but she wasn't sorry for wanting it.

 

"Everything I did, I did for us." Franky sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, reverting back to the slouching defensive angry prisoner who thought she'd made her point.

 

"No, Franky, you did all of this for yourself."

 

Then Bridget put up her own sacrifice: her body, her job, her sanity, her trust in Franky, her faith in them. Spelled out all the ways she wasn't quite over Franky's casual disregard of her and what they'd built together.  She was still trying to square the woman who loved her for eight months with the woman who lied to her again and again with the woman who thought she could make it all better by shouting her love across a city street _._

Franky had done so many things she knew from the outset were going to hurt Bridget, and hurt herself too, and barreled forward anyway because she knew she could. No comparison.  They had both risked for the other; Bridget bore the brunt and they both knew it.

 

"I love you. I'm not leaving you.  But please stop pretending that lying to me kept me safe."

 

When she'd finished, Franky stayed quiet for a long moment, foot tapping nervously while she worked through how to respond. Finally, she'd tossed her head, looked away, looked back at Bridget and spoke.  "You know, I was fucking petrified of losing you.  The kind of scared that makes me push back, 'cause I hate that feeling.  I don't trust myself when I'm scared like that.  Maybe I only trust myself when I'm scared like that.  And then it happened anyway, and it hurt worse than I imagined it would.  I could have just let this go.  Reckon I could have done that pretty easily, Gidge.  Just one more shit thing to happen in my shit life."

 

Her gaze steadied. "I can't live like that, though.  I love you.  I did a lot of fucked up things trying to get home to you and make it right, and I'm sorry.  Whatever else you think of me, whatever else I am, I'm yours.  I know I've been shit at promises lately, but I promise you I'll try to be better."

 

 

Franky winces as Bridget starts to put the ring back in her pocket. "Wait."  She scooches forward, swinging Bridget's legs off her own.  "Don't."

 

She holds her hand out, waiting for the weight of the ring on her palm, warm from Bridget's skin.

 

"Baby, we don't have to—"

 

Franky shakes her head. "Nope.  We're not doing that anymore."  Fuck avoidance.  It might be a Wentworth morning, but she can't be that Franky.  "C'mon.  Give it here."

 

Bridget stays quiet as Franky takes the ring and considers it, spinning it between her fingers, letting it catch the early morning light. "We never discussed it, but I have an idea of what that means to you.  If you don't feel like you're in a place where you want to wear it, that's fine," she says carefully.  "Just know that I don't mind if you want to."

 

"It's not that, Gidge. I just…"  Tears prick in her eyes, and she breaks their eye contact, scoffs at herself for choking up.  "You've had women tell you what it's like to come into prison?  To hand over all of their jewelry, their clothes, as much as the screws can take away your identity?  You can keep your hairstyle, paint your nails, as long as it fits into their system, but everything else you chose to make yourself stand out has to go."

 

"Was that how it was for you?"

 

Franky shrugs. "I chose neon fucking undies for a reason.  A hot pink bra was the best I could do within the rules."  They laugh.

 

She holds the ring up between them. "I wear my life on my skin for the world to see.  You deserve to be there, too.  This ring?  Taking this off in front of Mr. J, when he was already disappointed in me, and he could see how much I was disappointing someone else?  That hurt enough.  I didn't think I could do that again."

 

"I know you hate clichés, baby, but what you show the world isn't all of who you are." Bridget sets her cup down, taking Franky's hand in hers.  "You succeeded, baby.  You've got your life.  You don't need that ring to tell anyone what's in your heart, any more than I do."

 

And maybe if it's not a Wentworth morning she doesn't ask, but fuck it, she loves this woman. "Would you?"

 

Bridget has the sense to stay calm, to allow a raised eyebrow speak for her surprise, and give herself a moment to think. "What, wear a ring for you?"

 

"Well, as hot as it'd be, matching tattoos isn't really you," Franky jokes. "Yeah, a ring.  For us.  Maybe we get something we can both wear."

 

"If I said no, would you be upset?"

 

In their previous life, Bridget's hesitation would prompt questions, hunts for assurances that it's not over, but this isn't their previous life, no matter how much it tries to creep back up. Franky shakes her head.  "Just something we can think about, if you want."

 

"You know we can't yet," which is as close to _I want_ as Franky's going to get for now.

 

"I know." Franky leans forward, cups Bridget's face, stroking her thumbs across her cheekbones.  "I'm not proposing, Gidge, okay?  You and me, we rush into shit, and I don't want to do that anymore.  We're in this together, yeah?"  Bridget nods.  "That's all I'm after."

 

(And under her skin, on the tip of her tongue, through her veins, thrums _I love you I love you I love you._ She doesn't care how she gets to be with Bridget, as long as she gets to be.)

 

"I love you," Bridget says, speaking aloud the devotion she reads in Franky's eyes. "That's all I'm after."

 

Franky clears her throat, blinks back the tears again. _You fucking sook._ "Glad we've settled that."

 

Bridget reaches up, wipes the little bit of moisture from under Franky's eyes. "You want to tackle world peace next?  Can't be too complicated."  She grins as Franky chortles.

 

"Dunno, Gidge. Might be too serious," Franky teases.  "It's still early.  Haven't had breakfast yet.  You want world peace, though, I'll go start the toast."

 

Franky starts to rise, but Bridget tugs her back down. "World peace can wait.  Let's stay here a little bit longer."

 

(And what Bridget wants, Bridget gets.)


End file.
